The Right Company
by youaretrulybrilliant
Summary: Post 4x09, Caroline deals with the fallout of her choices and seeks peace outside Mystic Falls.


**These characters do not belong to me, I just enjoy them like the rest of you.**

She had never been so angry before in her life. She was livid at Klaus for killing the hybrids and Tyler's mom. She was still seeing red at Hayley for snapping her neck and then proceeding to run off in the night. She was mad at the stupid hybrids for not being patient enough to wait and then getting themselves killed. She was so mad at Tyler that she couldn't even think straight. She was mad that he was too hotheaded to think, mad that she confided in Stefan, mad that whatever she did wasn't good enough. As for the Elena situation with Damon it was best not to bring it up. But she was especially upset with herself. All of her actions had caused death and pain. Worst of all she had enjoyed her date with the big bad wolf and had all these guilty feelings about trying to kill him, again. She was so confused. _Hadn't she done the right thing?_

The fallout had been horrible. Tyler called her much later that night and said the police had found Carol's body. They both knew it was Klaus. Tyler was beyond comforting, in his incensed rage he transformed into his wolf form and ran. He wasn't even there for the funeral. Caroline stood off in the distance in all black, anger and guilt having turned to sadness and self-loathing, but determined not to show any emotion she stood there stony face nothing betraying her gorgeous face. She didn't know what to do anymore because Tyler had left and the feelings of guilt about Klaus were her constant companions.

"Do you know what Klaus said to me that night?" Caroline whipped her head up to see Stefan had been addressing her. The two of them were sitting at the boarding house; Damon had left to visit the Grill to drown in his own sorrows.

"What?"

"He said in the end we are left infinitely and utterly alone." Caroline knew he said more but she zoned out remembering the snowflake painting._ Is my work really that literal? ..I think it's kind of lonely. _ She groaned internally remembering their conversation before the chaos. Alone, funny that's what they all were now. Tyler left to who knew where, Stefan didn't have Elena, Damon had to severe the freaky sire bond with Elena, Jeremy would always be at opposites with his sister being a hunter, and everyone had at least one parent gone. The word kept racing across her mind and returning to Klaus and the painting of the snowflake.

"I can't take this anymore." snapping Stefan out of whatever monologue he had been giving her, Caroline stood up pulling on a steely look. "I am sick and tired of our lives being turned upside down every other day. I just need to get away from everything." Stefan was fast enough to drop his stunned look and put on a stern one.

"What exactly are you planning on doing? Now that Tyler messed everything up, we have to find that cure fast before Klaus makes heads roll."

"Stefan I love you, you are a wonderful friend and I am all about getting you and Elena back together and giving her the cure but right now I need to get away. I don't want anything related to the cure, hybrids, Elena, Jeremy, or disappearing boyfriends. I need to be alone. " Her fiery eyes pleaded with him. Stefan's faced softened immediately. "Okay Care. Just let me know where you are going."

She left, well with a bit of help financial aid from Stefan and promising her mother she would call her soon but not promising when she would come back. She didn't tell Stefan the real reason why she wanted to leave, she wasn't sure she wanted to admit it herself. Every conversation she had ever had with Klaus was on constant replay and she was hoping by leaving him behind they would stop. Her feelings of guilt about the constant betrayal and lying and equal parts of anger over his actions consumed her. She was drowning in it all.

Caroline punched the wall of her hotel room. She was in the Andes of all places because she couldn't stop thinking about the hummingbird story he had told her. His face had been so passive at that moment and soft, genuinely human. The guilty tears streaming down her face because she had enjoyed that moment and had forgotten that her heart was supposed to be with Tyler. Another thought filtered through her head. _You haven't even thought about him in weeks_. Her anger about the hybrid situation and all the ways he had treated her had turned to bitterness. She had begun comparing Tyler's actions towards her with Klaus. When Klaus had been angry with her he walked away and spoke in his deathly calm voice. Tyler had thrown things, ignored her, publicly humiliated her, locked her out of the away, and once again left her. The more she dwelt on him the more bitter she became.

Her goal had been to go on trek throughout the mountains to hopefully see a hummingbird like Klaus had but she had been there almost eight weeks already and she still couldn't bring herself to do it. Most of the time she just reflected on all the horrible things that had happened, the horrible person she had become between the lying, schemes, and betrayals. Klaus's words were her only companions and the drawing he had given her the night of the ball. She found herself wishing to hear his voice again, whispering that it was okay and she was safe. More than anything she wanted to hear that laugh again from the day of the pageant.

After ten weeks Stefan had stopped calling. He had left messages telling her what was happening and how they weren't any closer to finding a cure because Kol had gotten mad at Klaus and hide the sword. Professor Shane and Damon had gotten in a fight and then he began to hold out on his end as well. Elena left messages too but she had stopped calling after week seven. Around week twenty her mother wrote her a letter, telling her she was glad that Caroline left and was somewhere safe. She said she loved her and would wait for her to come home whenever she was ready. No one had ever mentioned Tyler but honestly in her mind they were done. If he didn't care to come find her that was fine, he wasn't worth the time. Her thoughts were consumed with another hybrid, a much older one.

She began to read everything she could get her hands on. She cycled through the classics, modern fiction, started on historical pieces, well if fashion history counted. Her blood supply was animals (yuck) and if she was lucky she could pinch some blood bags from the blood bank a couple hours away every now and then. She was also becoming quite proficient at speaking Spanish as well and made friends with the locals. Caroline enjoyed watching the locals make their handmade wares reveling in the very human notion of surviving day to day. One of the older women who would weave blankets noticed Caroline watching with such fascination and offered to teach her.

At the year mark Caroline had successfully woven her own rug in brilliant shades of red. She had never been more proud of something in her life. There were days where she forgot all about the trouble in Mystic Falls but dreams of the original hybrid plagued her at night. Caroline finally admitted to herself around the two year mark that she missed him and in spite of everything he had done she liked him. His laughter was still clear in her mind and every time she heard it echo in her memory she smiled.

She still hadn't completed the trek through the mountains yet. Her days were filled with the locals who fawned over her golden tresses, learning from any book she could get a hand on, and thinking of him. Each day she would look up at the mountains and think of the snowflake painting and Stefan's haunting words. She was beginning to understand what he meant. After four years she began to feel the weight of being by herself. One day a very weather beaten letter from her mother arrived. She wrote that Tyler had just gotten married to a wolf girl somewhere in New York. Instead of felling any anger Caroline only smiled. It lit her entire face and she silently shook her head at the idea of Tyler being married. In that moment she realized she was free from him as well, no more worry about him coming to look for her. She stared up at the mountains again, standing outside the little post office as people bustled back and forth.

"What are you smiling about love?"

Caroline froze, only one voice in the world sounded that way and Caroline had been waiting four years to hear it again. She slowly pivoted around, the letter crunched in hear hand. There he stood before her with that ever present stubble and stormy blue eyes. She gazed over his figure from his black jacket to the gray Henley to the black pants, and boots. His face was unreadable but his eyes held the tiniest flicker of warmth. Caroline fretted over her appearance, since living there she hadn't worn make up or even looked like she used to. Her golden hair had grown longer and curled around her face with such ease and beauty that no make up was needed to enhance her.

Too stunned to tell him anything but the truth she said, "A letter from my mother with news from home. Apparently Tyler just got married." Klaus's eyes darkened for a moment but that disappeared. He took a step closer, "Here I thought that mutt was with you sweetheart." Caroline laughed at that statement. "I haven't seen anyone from Mystic Falls ever since I left four years ago." Klaus's eyebrows shot up.

She took him to her home after that. After living in the motel for ten weeks the hotel owner had kicked her out and helped her find a home. It was small and modest but Caroline loved it. While she was in the kitchen making some tea to share with Klaus she heard him strolling about the place exploring. She heard him stop in what she gathered was her bedroom from the sound but when he did not come back out Caroline began to worry. She left the tea on the coffee table and walked down the hall towards her room. Klaus was sitting on her bed holding a small piece of parchment in his hands completely lost in his own world. It was his drawing he had given her all those nights ago when she was the "blonde distraction". He still hadn't made any movement with her coming into the room. Caroline carefully sat next to him on the side of the bed to better see his face.

Klaus still made no movement and Caroline sat there awkwardly not knowing what to do. Finally he looked up at her and she noticed his eyes full of unshed tears. "You kept it?" She could only nod in response the emotion on his face feeling her too stunned to do anything else.

"Why?"

Caroline smiled sadly. "To remind me of how much I messed everything up. You thanked me for my honesty that night and all I ever did after was scheme and lie. It became my reminder that I lost something very precious."

Klaus stared rather intensely at her and before she could say anything else he left the room. They didn't speak the rest of the day, Caroline gave Klaus the guest bedroom for the night and after awhile he retreated there and did not come not. Caroline was crushed. She knew that seeing Klaus again wouldn't be easy because she was sure he wouldn't forgive her let alone ever trust her again for being part of the hybrid destruction. It was so hard to see him look so handsome but so sad. Unable to handle the tension of it all she sat there on the couch staring into the fire, silent tears on her face. She knew Klaus could hear her but at that point it didn't matter. Four years of waiting to see him and they weren't even speaking. At least she could be grateful that he didn't kill her.

She must have fallen asleep on the couch because the next morning she awoke to the sun beating down on her face and Klaus sitting in a chair opposite the couch. He was once again staring intensely at her with every muscle held perfectly in place to not let any emotion show through. Caroline gazed up at him still lying down, not knowing what to say. But she didn't need to say anything because he spoke.

"I came here with the sole intent of killing you." She flinched for a moment and sat up noticing a blanket had somehow been placed on her during the night. "But the minute I saw you standing outside that post office all thoughts of murderous intent fled. You were so beautiful and ravishing like you always have been that I couldn't bring myself to hurt you. It has always been that way since that moment I saw you on your bed dying from the hybrid bite. I am quite damned that way." He let out a small smile at her. "I was so angry at you that night, I was possessed by your light and your burned me. I lost my hybrids, a thousand years down in one fell swoop and I had never felt so lonely before. I had spent all that time wooing you and trying to get you to see love how wonderful you were and all you did was snub me." Caroline could no longer contain tears that had gathered in her eyes, tears of shame, guilt, and deep sadness had once again surfaced.

"Truth be told I had wanted to kill you that night but I was so hurt that I couldn't bring myself to do it. When you disappeared I thought you had run after that stupid hybrid of mine but Stefan tried to assure me you hadn't. I wasn't convinced until you told me yesterday. It was in that moment I knew that you didn't leave because you were seeking Tyler. You left for you. When I finally tracked you down to this area I tried to grasp why here of all places." Klaus' face began to lighten, a small smirk emerged.

Caroline at this point was smiling at him tears forgotten and wrapped the blanket around her for comfort. This was the most honest and open she had ever seen him and she was not going to stop him. But when he didn't say anything more she realized he was waiting for her to help him understand why the Andes mountains in Chile . Finding her courage she put on her best smirk, "Oh you know it's the best place to learn the art of weaving." Her eyes twinkled and in response so did his. They both knew why she was there, she just wasn't saying it. He wanted to hear her say it. Well she was just as stubborn as he.

Klaus growled playfully now, "Caroline." He got up from his seat from the chair and slid onto the couch next to her invading her personal space. Caroline pretended not to notice.

"Did you know that in the four years I have been here I haven't once trekked up those mountains?" She twisted her body towards him to smell his spicy masculine smell better. _Oh how she had missed that. _

He laughed. "Not even once? Why on earth not love?" Caroline was enjoying his use of pet names now and the glorious sound of that laugh. Taking a deep breathe she knew everything was about change with her answer.

"What's the use in that if I don't have the right company? I would be doing it alone and I don't want to be alone." She let her words sink in, staring at the hands in her lap not daring to look up the man next to her. She felt Klaus stiffen next to her and have an intake of unneeded air. She could feel the warmth of his body stronger as he pushed closer to her. His hand came gently to her chin and lifted it up so he could see her eyes. His eyes had an emotion she had never seen before and was puzzled by it.

Struggling to speak he finally spoke in a very quiet and broken voice, "Do you need company?" His eyes were swimming in emotions so quickly Caroline could not keep up. They both had leaned in closer their lips centimeters apart but eyes glued to each other. Caroline felt herself wilt under the intensity of his gaze, the tension was binding. She was searching for the exact words to say that could convey every emotion she felt. Klaus was a man of action, not words. Eyes twinkling at his she closed the gap between them and softly pressed her lips to his. It was so feather light that she was unsure Klaus even felt it but before she could pull away her arms were pinned against her and Klaus crashed his lips on hers with a soul crushing passionate kiss. Hands everywhere trying to cement the fact that they were finally touching each other.

Breaking away Klaus leaned his forehead to Caroline's. Both were panting trying to recover and smiling like school children.

" l'm sorry." she whispered against his lips. She didn't have to say what for, he knew.

"Do you need company?" he repeated the question again that infuriating confidence back.

"Only yours." He kissed her again.


End file.
